Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Docking

Figure 1. Docking Station being tested in MBARI test tank.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) mission durations can be extended by recharging their batteries while at sea using an AUV Docking Station. MBARI has designed and built two experimental docking stations for their Dorado and Long Range AUVs, though only the Dorado docking station has been tested at sea (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Docking station being recovered after deployment.[/caption]

An AUV docking station provides a secure place to park an AUV between missions and usually provides power to recharge batteries and a gateway for communications to shore. While many different mechanical designs have been suggested, most employ a tapering cone to align an in-coming AUV into a capture tube and some way to lock the AUV into the dock. MBARI added an inductive power transfer and wireless data telemetry and is described in

[1]. The docking station was designed to plug into the MARS cabled observatory

The power buoy has been in development for since 2009, and has been deployed and recovered six times over the past four years. Modifications after each deployment have increased the power buoy’s efficiency and the amount of time it can spend out in the ocean.

The range and endurance of the new long-range AUV (LRAUV) greatly expands the types of observations and experiments possible with autonomous platforms. For instance, one of the institute’s AUVs carries a comprehensive suite of sensors out to MBARI’s M2 mooring and back.

The Sampling and Identifying Marine Zooplankton (SIMZ) project of Senior Scientist Robert Vrijenhoek's laboratory aims to further understand the ecology and genetic diversity of marine zooplankton. MBARI team members and outside collaborators sampled from the R/V Rachel Carson to target subsurface chlorophyll layers in northern Monterey Bay.

Research programs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) encompass the entire ocean, from the surface waters to the deep seafloor, and from the coastal zone to the open sea. The need to understand the ocean in all its complexity and variability drives MBARI's research and development efforts.